Color Deficit Among “50 Best” Raises Question
Most “city” magazines look like they really are about just part of the city: an upscale, white demographic that they pitch to advertisers.
The latest issue of Washingtonian magazine features a list of the “50 Best and Most Influential Journalists” in the capital, and it does little to counter that impression. Of the 50, only two are people of color – both columnists. The photograph opening the article features 10 of those selected, together in a book-lined den. All are white.
Unity: Journalists of Color reported (PDF) in 2004 that newspapers’ Washington bureaus lack sufficient numbers of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans. But reports such as the Washingtonian’s raise the question of whether the existing journalists of color are considered not good enough, have little influence or are simply invisible – or whether the problem lies with the people making the selections.
“I don’t like what I’m thinking,” Pulitzer winner Colbert I. King, deputy editorial page editor and op-ed columnist at the Washington Post, told Journal-isms.
“I have received several e-mails from folks asking why I wasn’t in there and my answer is simple – ‘they didn’t ask me,'” said another well-placed journalist of color, who did not want to be named.
“Once again, Washingtonian has trouble seeing the color all around it in the nation’s capital city,” said a third media figure of color, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
“I love Gene and Wilbon,” this person continued, referring to Washington Post columnists Eugene Robinson and Michael Wilbon, the two journalists of color on the list, “but the folks at Washingtonian only know from the shows they happen to watch. Funny how they can see behind the scenes when it comes to cable-tv bookers, but not to influential editors of color like Deborah Heard, or columnists like Colby King who literally changes the world around him in his columns (and has a Pulitzer to show for it), or to A’lelia Bundles at ABC, or Michele Norris, who climbs into our heads every afternoon on All Things Considered. I could go on and on.”
Robinson started this year as an op-ed columnist; Wilbon is a longtime sports columnist. Heard is the Post’s assistant managing editor in charge of its Style section. Bundles is ABC’s director of talent development, and Norris is a co-host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
“Mike Wilbon and Gene Robinson at the Post I think are the only two” people of color on the list, the author of the piece, Garrett M. Graff, told Journal-isms. “Gwen Ifill makes our sidebar on the city’s top explainers, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran makes our list of rising stars. In the 2001 list, which was the last time we did it (it’s a quadrennial feature since 1973), Jonetta Rose Barras was the only person of color on the list.” Barras is a local columnist who specializes in D.C. politics and government.
Graff, 24, a 2003 Harvard graduate who edited the media blog Fishbowl D.C. before joining Washingtonian this year, wrote in the magazine, “The top 50 list itself encompasses the best and most influential journalists in Washington – which actually turn out to be different measures. While ‘best’ measures talent and ability, ‘most influential’ more than anything measures one’s perch. . . .
“In creating this year’s list we talked to scores of political observers, pundits, Washington figures, and members of the Fourth Estate. We interviewed reporters and editors about who among their colleagues they seek out, who changes their thinking, and whose lead they follow. We talked to people on the Hill and in and around government about whom they respect and which reporters seem to ‘get it.'”
While there were no people of color among the “we” at the magazine who put together the list, Graff told Journal-isms, “we reached out to minorities” in seeking reactions. “There were not dozens of names that came up that got left off.”
Here’s who made the list:
Mike Allen (Time), Dan Balz (Washington Post), Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Gloria Borger (CBS), David Broder (Washington Post), David Brooks (New York Times), Ron Brownstein (Los Angeles Times), Peter Canellos (Boston Globe) Steve Coll (Washington Post/New Yorker) Maureen Dowd (New York Times) Howard Fineman (Newsweek).
Marc Fisher (Washington Post), Ron Fournier (AP), Thomas Friedman (New York Times), Linda Greenhouse (New York Times), David Gregory (NBC), Ken Herman (Cox), Seymour Hersh (New Yorker), Brit Hume (Fox), Michael Isikoff (Newsweek).
Al Kamen (Washington Post), Mark Knoller (CBS), William Kristol (Weekly Standard), Howard Kurtz (Washington Post), Jill Lawrence (USA Today), Jim Lehrer (PBS), Mark Leibovich (Washington Post), David Martin (CBS), Chris Matthews (MSNBC), Tony Mauro (Legal Times).
Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times), Dana Milbank (Washington Post), Judy Miller (New York Times), Terry Moran (ABC), Adam Nagourney (New York Times), Robert Novak (Chicago Sun-Times), Dana Priest (Washington Post), Todd S. Purdum (New York Times), Cokie Roberts (ABC/NPR), Eugene Robinson (Washington Post).
Tim Russert (NBC), David E. Sanger (New York Times), Bob Schieffer (CBS), Tom Shales (Washington Post), Tom Sherwood (WRC-TV), George Stephanopoulos (ABC), John Walcott (Knight Ridder), Mike Wilbon (Washington Post), David Willman (Los Angeles Times), Bob Woodward (Washington Post).
Here’s who did not:
Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Washington Post assistant managing editor for sports; Deborah Heard, Washington Post assistant managing editor for Style; Darius Walker, who oversees Washington news coverage for CNN as senior director, news coverage; longtime local television anchors Jim Vance, J.C. Hayward and Maureen Bunyan; local columnists Courtland Milloy and Donna Britt of the Washington Post and Adrienne Washington of the Washington Times; syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, a Pulitzer winner.
Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, also a Pulitzer winner; Colbert I. King, columnist, Pulitzer winner and deputy editor of the Washington Post editorial page; Gwen Ifill, managing editor and moderator of “Washington Week in Review” and senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer”; Ray Suarez, senior correspondent, “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” Robert Garcia, Washington bureau chief, ABC News Radio; Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor, Washington Post; Post consumer columnists Michelle Singletary (personal finance), Keith Alexander (airline travel) and Warren Brown (automobiles); Juan Williams, senior correspondent, National Public Radio and Fox News commentator; Alison Bethel, Washington bureau chief, Detroit News.
Michele Norris, co-host, National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”; Edwin Chen, White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; Vicki Walton, former Chicago Tribune bureau chief who coordinates operations between the Tribune Co.’s Washington bureaus; George E. Curry, columnist and editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service; syndicated Pulitzer-winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald, and others you may name here.
“Never question our ability! We are great and a much needed voice within the mainstream,” April Ryan, White House correspondent for the American Urban Radio Networks, wrote to Journal-isms in response to a request for overlooked candidates. “Flip the script! Come up with your own list on an annual basis and they will take note.”
- Fox News, Declining to Stand With These Media Power Players (Washington Post “Reliable Source” column)
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Keith Wheeler, Christina Elias Laid Off in Orlando
A black journalist closely identified with the Orlando Sentinel’s “convergence” efforts and a Latina journalist who worked for its Spanish-language El Sentinel were among eight newsroom employees laid off Tuesday, sources said, as the Tribune Co.-owned paper let go 21 people throughout its departments.
“The cuts came less than two weeks after the paper announced that it would need to eliminate jobs to improve its financial performance and adapt to market changes. In addition to the layoffs, 33 vacant positions won’t be filled,” Christopher Boyd wrote today in the Sentinel.
Among those who left the building Tuesday were Keith Wheeler and Christina Elias. Wheeler, a former TV news director who was hired by the Sentinel “to create stories for the cable station” owned by Time Warner “and to train print reporters to think television,” as Alicia C. Shepard wrote in the American Journalism Review in 2000.
However, Orlando Sentinel Communications sold its 50 percent interest in the TV news operation News 13, Florida Today reported in 2003.
[Added Dec. 1: The Sentinel is continuing its “multimedia strategy,” Ashley Allen, vice president for corporate communications told Journal-isms, a strategy that is “always evolving.” The partnerships take different forms, from reporters appearing on a weekly high-school sports show on the NBC affiliate to the chief meteorologist at the ABC affiliate appearing on the Sentinel’s daily weather page.]
Wheeler was president of the Central Florida Association of Black Journalists and Broadcasters during the National Association of Black Journalists convention in the city in 2001. Elias, who worked on the weekly El Sentinel, which has a staff of six, covered Oceola County (Kissimmee), health and business. Neither she nor Wheeler could be reached today.
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Knight Ridder Extends Freeze Beyond Diversity
Knight Ridder, which as reported last week is putting its corporate diversity programs on hold, now has frozen spending in other areas as well, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today.
“Like a city under siege, Knight Ridder Inc., publisher of 32 daily newspapers, has cut back on a number of activities while its investment bankers consider whether the chain should be sold, and who might buy it,” Joseph N. DiStefano wrote.
“Union contract negotiations at Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., the Knight Ridder unit that publishes The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, have been put on hold ‘given the uncertainty that exists while the Knight Ridder board considers strategic options, including a possible sale,’ publisher Joe Natoli told workers yesterday in a memo.
“According to a statement released yesterday by the Philadelphia Newspaper Guild, which represents advertising, circulation and newsroom staff at the newspapers, Natoli told union representatives that ‘all spending that is not absolutely necessary to daily operations will be put on hold.'”
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As We Write About Obesity, What About Hunger?
“The problem of hunger in America is so large that reporters often have difficulty comprehending its scope, root causes, and impact on society. Selling editors on stories about hunger can be even harder in an age where obesity stories get all the ink,” J. Larry Brown, who directs the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University, wrote Tuesday on the Nieman Watchdog Web site.
“According to government statistics, 38 million Americans live in households that suffer from hunger or food insecurity. The number of hungry mouths has increased by 43 percent in the past five years, according to the Department of Agriculture.”
“The United States is the only developed country with a serious hunger problem, and more than 12 million of those affected are children.”
Brown lists questions reporters should be asking.
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Calif. Death Row Case Gaining Media Attention
Around California, death penalty opponents rallied today to call on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to save the life of convicted killer-turned-gang peace activist Stanley Tookie Williams, Robert Jablon reported today for the Associated Press.
“The co-founder of the Crips street gang is scheduled to die Dec. 13 by lethal injection at San Quentin state prison after being convicted of murdering four people in 1979.”
The California Supreme Court today refused to reopen his case, and “Schwarzenegger has agreed to hear Williams’ clemency petition in his office Dec. 8. If clemency is granted it would commute his sentence to life without parole,” the AP said.
The news media have become part of Williams’ strategy to save his life. He was interviewed from death row today on Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now!” and spoke with Tavis Smiley in an interview that aired on his public television show Tuesday and airs on radio Dec. 9.
Those writing about Williams’ case include Herb Boyd of The Black World Today and syndicated columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, in print and on the air.
For those who have been rendering “Tookie” as Williams’ nickname, the inmate explained on “Democracy Now!” that “That is my middle name. My mother gave me that. In fact, that was my father’s middle name as well. And I believe it’s my grandfather’s middle name. But I know it’s my father’s, for a fact. Stanley Tookie Williams III.”
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Kyung Lah Lands at CNN Newsource in D.C.
Kyung Lah, the reporter who was fired in March from KNBC-TV in Los Angeles along with two others over an extramarital affair, is joining CNN Newsource’s Washington bureau, CNN confirmed today.
“Lah will serve as a national correspondent and will report live from breaking news events and from the nation’s capital, providing live reports for approximately 800 CNN Newsource partner stations,” said Paul Crum, executive director of news operations for CNN/U.S. “For affiliates, Lah’s assignment offers an additional general assignment correspondent in the Washington, D.C., area as CNN Newsource expands its D.C. operations.”
“Lah was fired by KNBC in March for ‘gross misconduct,’ after she was nabbed having an affair with her married field producer Jeff Soto, who has since been hired across the street as 11 p.m. producer for Viacom duopoly KCBS/KCAL,” as the NewsBlues Web site put it today.
“Jim Bunner, the 11 p.m. producer who squealed on the couple, was also fired and is now executive producer at KEYT-3-ABC in Santa Barbara.”
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Acel Moore Retirement Said to Raise Fears
“Since his early days in the ’60s as a skinny copy boy, when he was one of the only blacks in the Inquirer building,” the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Acel Moore “has been an agent for change. He challenged the Inquirer’s very notions of the black community, telling editors when the paper’s coverage was being insensitive and sometimes even racist,” Kia Gregory wrote in the Nov. 30-Dec. 6 edition of Philadelphia Weekly.
“He wrote stories that exposed the ordinariness of black life, and showed how that life could be brutally disrupted by people and institutions and policies. And as he went about his work, Moore made sure to carve out doors for black journalists to enter.
“Now, with Moore’s retirement, there are the expected feelings of loss and sadness. But there’s something else: fear. Fear that the doors Moore helped open in newsrooms over the decades are about to be slammed shut.”
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Voice Publishes Guide to Troubles at the Source
The hip-hop magazine the Source “has picked countless fights since its birth in 1988. But given the number of hits they’re taking – tens of millions in credit claims and lawsuits, arrests, even murder charges against key staffers – it’s amazing” co-owner Raymond Scott, “fellow co-owner David Mays, and rookie editor Dasun Allah can put out a magazine at all. Just keeping track of the major court cases advancing this month is a task,” Aina Hunter writes in the current issue of the Village Voice.
“Here’s Your Guide to the Lawsuits, Criminal Charges, and Beefs,” reads a headline.
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Columnist Finds Amsterdam News Good Copy
“In 1996, a jury in state Supreme Court found Wilbert A. Tatum, then the publisher of the Amsterdam News, guilty of having ‘wrongfully diverted’ more than a million dollars from the paper’s parent company,” Azi Paybarah writes in the Nov. 30-Dec 6 issue of the alternative New York Press.
“Last week, Executive Editor Jamal Watson was arrested and accused of stealing a thousand dollars from the company’s summer internship program. Good stuff.”
Meanwhile, Watson continues to write in the New York Sun. A column, “Mormonism Takes Hold In Harlem,” appeared today.
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South Asians Holding Service for Brij Lal, 81
The South Asian Journalists Association is holding a memorial service in New York Thursday for pioneering Indian American broadcast journalist Brij Lal, who died Nov. 20 at age 81.
Lal, a longtime member of SAJA and inaugural inductee into the SAJA Hall of Fame, hosted the New York-based “Bharat Vani” television and radio program and the Connecticut-based “Let’s Talk” Comcast cable show. He had also worked for the Voice of America and ABC Radio Network News.
“No South Asian journalist’s career had the incredible sweep, range and influence his did,” the organization said. The service is scheduled from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W. 17th St.
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Journalists of Color Called Too Middle-Class
The author of a Chicago Sun-Times series, “The Fragile Black Middle Class: Race and Money in Chicago,” said she thinks there ought to be more journalists of color from poor backgrounds.
In an interview with PR Week made available today to nonsubscribers, Cheryl Reed was asked, “Do you think diversity, or lack of it, in newsrooms affects the way that media cover race?”
“I don’t,” she replied. “I have very opinionated feelings on this. I think most of the blacks and minorities that we hire are very middle/upper-middle class. Most have gone to very good schools. They do not come from poor backgrounds. It’s pretty rare to have a minority in the newsroom that came from a poor background, went to a community college or something like that, who can really relate to what’s happening on that level. And so I think there’s not a lot of diversity in thought and class between those minorities who are in the newsroom.”
She also said her series decided to focus on “middle class, upper-middle class, and actually wealthy blacks” because “I don’t think that segment of the population is covered much.”
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Montgomery Poised for Civil Rights Anniversary
“As we approach Thursday’s 50th anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks, who has been celebrated in life and death as the spark of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and on Dec. 5 the 50th anniversary of the boycott’s beginning, worldwide attention is focused on Montgomery,” Wanda Lloyd, executive editor of Alabama’s Montgomery Advertiser, wrote in a column today.
“The newspaper’s new Web site, www.montgomeryboycott.com, on Thursday will include video interviews with most of the ‘Voices of the Boycott,’ as well as archives of hundreds of stories that appeared in the Advertiser and the Alabama Journal in 1955 and 1956.
“A new book, ‘They Walked to Freedom: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,’ comes out in a few days as an historic recap of the boycott. It features dozens of images from the two local newspapers, as well as copies of mementos from the memory chests and scrapbooks of some of the boycott’s survivors or their family members.
“The Advertiser’s newsroom staff formed a partnership with the Montgomery Children’s Walk Committee to judge essays from students in 7th through 12th grade. The winning essays will appear Thursday on the editorial page. The Advertiser’s Newspaper in Education team worked with teachers to develop a curriculum guide to be used as a tool for classroom lessons about the boycott.
“The Advertiser is positioned, perhaps as well as any media organization, to tell this story.”
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Poor Coverage Linked to Lack of Aid for Guatemala
“In a year marked by tragedy when many businesses along the Gulf Coast perished, CDI Medical Systems has flourished,” David E. Leiva wrote Monday in the Capital of Annapolis, Md.
” . . . But on Tuesday, it wasn’t about profits or contracts. It wasn’t even about helping Americans.
“Mr. Cagle, a service-disabled Army veteran, arranged for a donation of $125,000 worth of blankets, cots and pillow to go to people of Guatemala, particularly those who will have to survive the winter months living in mountains after Hurricane Stan decimated the Central American country in October.
“. . .Mr. Cagle said the lack of coverage played a major role in preventing donations from reaching the storm victims.
“‘With all that is going on in the world, news of the devastation in Guatemala blipped on and off the news screen in America,’ he said. ‘We want to help bring attention and aid back to this stricken country.'”
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Nashville Weatherman Bill Hall Retires
Bill Hall, weather team anchor at WSMV-TV in Nashville, retired at age 59 today after 31 years on the air.
A WSMV story quoted Lisa Spencer, chief meteorologist: “People really trust his forecast. I’ve had viewers tell me, if Bill says it’s going to snow, it’s going to snow. He has had such an impact on Middle Tennessee; it’s such a treat to work with Bill Hall everyday. He is truly a living legend and a tough act to follow.”